update 24 Feb 2914 Todays JAMA on-line- first prereleasearticle about the current resurgence of Critically Ill Patients With Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 Virus Infection in 2014 laments its high deathrate from acute respiratory and multiorgan failure adults in young adults, and its guarded response to antiviral designer drugs like Tamiflu. But it fails to mention vitamins and minerals, although these have dramatic benefit in both preventing infections, and treating flu, AIDS and TB.

Guess which Big Pharma is the biggest manufacturer of vitamins in the world? Roche. and guess which company makes Tamiflu? Roche– which refused to release the data from all of its trials, the adverse effects far exceeding its benefits.

But nutritional supplements are not patentable, so they are studiously ignored by the Disease Industry for whom only profit matters.

More about the lethal effect of deriding and suppressing good remedies under the-2014-virus-season-dawns-avoiding-the-semmelweis-reflex-natural-antibiotics-vitamins-c-d3-avoiding-vitamin-denialism – The Semmelweis Reflex.

update 16 Feb 2014: it’s taken 5 years, but at last the fraud of Big Pharma and the Regulators, Governments they support is being exposed in more depth:

and the wider Multiple Vaccine MMR fraud affecting especially infants and children (the gastroenteropathy- Autism link), that has been centre stage for 15 years, is analysed in detail by Dr Andrew Wakefield in his new book Callous Disregard.

INQUIRIES GET UNDERWAY INTO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Governments heeded warnings from the United Nations that there would be millions of deaths unless nations promptly proceeded with the controversial vaccination plan promoted by the UN’s entity for health matters, the WHO. With billions of dollars of unneeded inventory now going to waste, government leaders turned angry and started to demand hard answers.

Articles in the European press have repeatedly called into question the myriad ties between vaccine manufacturers and decision makers in the WHO.

The French opposition Socialist Party described that country’s national campaign as an “extravagant fiasco” and demanded a parliamentary investigation.

In early January 2010, the Council of Europe member states announced they are launching an inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the drug industry’s influence on WHO. The text of the resolution says, in part, “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The ‘bird-flu’-campaign (2005/06) combined with the ‘swine-flu’-campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health-budgets, but to the credibility and accountability of important international health-agencies.”[1]

The WHO’s “false pandemic” flu campaign is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,” according to Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. “The definition of an alarming pandemic must not be under the influence of drug-sellers,” he adds.

Wodarg, a doctor and former SPD member of the German Bundestag, says that the “false pandemic” campaign began last May in Mexico City, when a hundred or so “normal” reported influenza cases were declared to be the beginning of a threatening new pandemic, although there was little scientific evidence for this. Nevertheless the WHO, “in cooperation with some big pharmaceutical companies and their scientists, re-defined pandemics,” removing the statement that “an enormous amount of people have contracted the illness or died” from its existing definition and replacing it by stating simply that there has to be a virus, spreading beyond borders and to which people have no immunity.

These new standards forced politicians in most states to react immediately and sign marketing commitments for additional and new vaccines against swine flu, through “sealed contracts” under which orders are secured in advance and governments take almost all responsibility. “In this way, the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks. So they just wait until WHO says ‘pandemic’ and activate the contracts,” says Dr. Wodarg.[1]

The Japanese health ministry announced it is launching an inquiry into deaths and side effects from the vaccine. Japan recorded 104 deaths, roughly 80 percent of whom are people aged 70 or older who had chronic diseases or disorders. Additionally, some 1,900 cases of side effects had been reported from medical institutions.

In the U.S., President Obama had decreed the H1N1 pandemic a national emergency, prompting some analysts to warn about increased governmental powers. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a “formal declaration of a Public Health Emergency” in April of 2009, even though there had only been 20 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus.

How Big Pharma profits off fear With Big Pharma raking in billions off swine flu fears, the last thing they need is a government handout.

Yet Uncle Sam is busy playing Daddy Warbucks with YOUR lunch money, helping Swiss drugmaker Novartis open a new vaccine plant in North Carolina. You’ve generously contributed around $700 million to help Novartis build their shiny new drug factory — $220 million three years ago, and $486 million this year.

And I’ll bet you didn’t even get a thank-you card.

In return for this bad investment in a foreign company, the U.S. government gets the right to PURCHASE vaccine for 17 years. Not only that, but these vaccines will be created using a new and unproven biotech method that relies on dog kidneys instead of chicken eggs.

In other words, this plan really is a dog.

I’m a doctor, not an economist. But if this is someone’s idea of stimulus, you do the math: The plant now employs 191 people making an average of $50,000 per year. At that rate, it would take around 75 years for the government money put into this joint to make its way back into our own economy.

Slice off a few years if you believe them when they say they’ll ultimately employ 350 people when the plant is fully operational in 2013 — in any case, it’ll be decades before Americans ever see that cash again.

But don’t worry — I’m sure somewhere, a poor Swiss ski resort is hosting a group of free-spending Novartis executives.

Maybe they’ll be joined by their yodeling friends at the World Health Organization. A report at World Net Daily says at least three of the WHO’s top flu “experts” have financial ties to vaccine makers.

That sure explains a lot.

Meanwhile, anyone who doubts that money is the real driving force behind swine flu fears only needs to check out Business Week magazine.

A recent headline there tells whole story by itself: “How Big Pharma Profits from Swine Flu.”

Careful there, Business Week. That kind of thinking would have gotten you branded a radical conspiracy theorist just a few months ago!

Just check out these big paydays off swine flu vaccine sales:
• $1.7 billion for GlaxoSmithKline
• $700 million for Novartis
• $500 million for Sanofi-Aventis
Those figures are for the fourth quarter of 2009 alone — analysts expect them to grab similar piles of cash for the first quarter of 2010 as everyone from President Obama to Santa Claus push these needless vaccines on you and your children.

Business Week also notes that vaccine sales are booming just in time: Patents on prescription drugs worth a combined $135 billion in annual sales are about to expire… with no new meds ready to replace them.

And that means you can expect another phony swine flu scare any moment now.

Martin Walker’s ongoing expose of The Drug Industry-GMC-NHS vendetta against Dr Andrew Wakefield for daring to question the benefits of mass vaccination of infants;

about the risks versus benefit of vaccinating pubertal boys and girls against cervix cancer;

and the mad search for an HIV vaccine against a disease which is in fact a sociological problem of nutritional immunodeficiency upon which is superimposed sexual violence as in rape or voluntary recklessness usually against (usually) innocent partners – promiscuity in multiple concurrent sexual relationships as currently promoted by sexual predators like Tiger Woods and the illegitimate and corrupt South African “president” Jacob Zuma. .

UPDATE 16 December:

It is now 15 weeks since this column expressed grave doubt about the cost-benefit of the touted anti-virals Tamiflu and Relenza .

All hell has broken loose over drug company fraud- which could only have happened in collusion with big politicians:

not only has proven swine flu mercifully fallen far below pandemic deathrate and sickness predictions, while big batches of vaccine (GSK) have had to be pulled due to serious complications even in Canada- and GSK directors /promoters too are under scrutiny;

but predictions about the fraud of massive anti-influenza drug promotion have proven all too true. The BMJ today is full of doubts since a solitary Japanese author questioned the veracity of selectively published let alone unpublished Tamiflu studies orchestrated by Roche.

As some say, in marketing and disease-mongering, its like in love and war- anything goes – and provided it promotes American corporate interests, the FDA goes along.. ..

20091111 A This WW1 Armistice day : A new report quotes the CDC projection that “4000 rather than 1200 Americans have died of swine flu since April.. and that the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research thinks deaths are likely to be in the 30,000-to-40,000 range, and would have a long way to go to even get there… The vaccine should also cut the death rate.”.

Yesterday an appeal from the FDA Commissioner of Food and Drugs went out to all to promote the swine flu vaccine. But Dr Hamburg does not quote one iota of evidence that the vaccine does or will do more good than harm- especially in those at highest risk, the pregnant, the old and ill and infants. She fails to address the cardinal issue: why have no trials so far assessed the benefit of the vaccine (on swine flu infectivity and morbidity) against placebo on a background of well-known anti-infective natural safe supplements?

It is perfectly obvious that with an apparent infectivity rate of swine flu well above 1:1000, but an apparent linked mortality rate of 2 per million of population per month through September-October- the USA- the FDA CDC and the other interlinked countries at highest risk- Canada, Australia, UK, Brazil, Argentine – had a duty to see that the vaccines were immediately tested in double-blind RCTs against placebo injection in volunteers– at least the apparently moderate risk ie the well young, but most of all in the high-risk groups ie the age extremes, pregnancy and those with serious chronic diseases.

From the already established spread-, fatality- and complication rate, it is obvious that, during the current upsurge reported by these countries, it would take no more than a few weeks – at a vaccination rate even in Sweden of 2million people in a few weeks, with spread rate of thousands of new tested cases a month, to produce the crucial answers- how far does the vaccine cut the infection rate, and the morbidity rate and degree.

Yet according to the NIH Clinical trials.gov registry, there is still no such trial listed. The FDA decidedit doesnt require efficacy data on the vaccines.

So it appears that the Authorities in all pandemic countries are guilty of gross deception- at best that they know that the vaccine is pretty useless, or worse, that they dont know – and don’t want to know till the vaccine is all used up. Dastardly conspiracy theorizing, by sober scientists, but that’s what the Authorities’ declared deliberate omission (evasion of such a basic obvious efficacy trial) creates.

At least there is a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial of Tamiflu in progress in Hong Kong, in 300 patients with the swine flu, lasting a year. . The outcome is likely to be that, if tamiflu doesnt prove to be worse than the placebo, 300 is far too few subjects to show any significant benefit over placebo.

Bloombergs reports today that Norway has had 6300 confirmed cases by last week and 16 related deaths by Nov 9, but while Sweden had cases doubling weekly to the last week of October, there have still been only 3 related deaths reported . However on Nov 9th perhaps the 4th related death was reported in Sweden. . But Sweden has banned media reporting on swine flu vaccine deaths, which stood at 5 after 2million vaccinations.

It looks like the cumulative swine-flu related deathrate in Europe has reached 0.8 per million population.

20091109 The past week: only one new case has been reported in Southern Africa (Namibia) and no linked deaths in Africa; in Canada between 3-5 Nov there were 14 new linked deaths (14% increase); in Netherlands 7 people died in the week to 6 Nov, with the total there still only around 20 attributed to the swine flu.

The USA latest CDC report shows that in the 2 months to end October influenza-associated death rate was 2 per million of population per month; for comparison, in 2006 the monthly deathrate was 770 per million, of which influenza and pneumonia contributed only 2.3%, the 8th leading cause after cardiac-, stroke, malignant, lower respiratory, accident, diabetes and alzheimer causes. Since – accidents aside- all of these commonest fatal diseases are precisely the highrisk patients that die most of influenza anyway, it is unclear whether the present increase in ILS ( influenza-like syndrome) deaths has significantly increased overall mortality

SWINE FLU 1918: There is a graphic interview on November 5th with a living survivor of the 1918 genuine flu epidemic, which killed some 2.5-3% ie 25 000 of every million people (5% in India) by blue death- drowning- in at least America, France and Germany, far more in India. That H1N1 plague lasted at least 2 years, infecting perhaps 1/3 of the world population of 1.5billion, with 50% cross-infection rate and mortality rate of between 2% and 20% of those infected.

SWINE FLU 1976: that outbreak never spread beyond Fort Dix, where one victim died. But in the ensuing government panic, 22% of the population were given a hastily prepared vaccine, followed by 1098 cases of Guillaine-Barre syndrome, at least half of which were attributed to the H1N1 vaccine, with at least 25 deaths. A recent review puts this risk (of GBS after H1N1 vaccination) at about 1 in a million- far higher than there is now of healthy people dying of the current swine flu outside the Americas and Australia.

SWINE FLU 2009: it is cold comfort to see the current swine flu global picture on Wiki at the end of October- a true deathrate of probably <1 per million after at least 6 months. The big question is, will there be more waves of it or, worse, a deadlier mutation caused by hasty vaccination?

The biggest question, mystery, now is: if swine flu is indeed pandemic and spreading at least in America and Australia, why are there still no placebo-controlled trials published confirming that the vaccines and antiviral drugs reduce infectivity, severity and mortality of the 2009 H1N1 virus?

INCIDENCE: While bigger countries have stopped testing all but key or high-risk suspect cases for swine flu, the smaller countries’ figures of confirmed cases relative to population size are instructive:

Multiplying the incidence rate by the case fatality rate- or more simply dividing the number of deaths by the population- suggests that if you the reader are generally well, the odds of your dying of swine flu are far below 1 in a million; whereas infants, or the elderly, the chronically ill or the obese are at far higher risk of dying anyway. So far there have been some 1500 deaths in 308million Americans recorded in people testing positive for swine flu- that, is some 5 deaths per million- but by epidemiological reasoning by an international team, most of those deaths were already in pregnant or other (chronically) high risk patients and therefore not attributable primarily to the swine flu itself- they were already, knowingly or not, at high background risk..

1500 deaths in 6 months in America is ~0.8 deaths per million per month, but the background- all-cause death rate there averages about 68 per million per month by last CDC count.

Japan and India with the highest population density in the world for big developed populations are remarkable – since the first case in their spring 6 months ago, similar population deathrates so far of only 0.00004% or 0.4 per million.

whereas in USA the official attributed swine flu death rate so far is 12 fold higher ie about 0.0005% ie 5 per million. North America’s epidemic had only a month headstart on the rest of the world.

These fatality rates may be the maximum theoretically, since even in these first-world countries, the great majority of those who did have swine flu symptoms would not have reported in to be tested.

While most cases of swine flu would have been unrecorded- shrugged off- in both developed and poor countries it is likely that many deaths at the time of maximum scare may have been wrongly ascribed to swine flu. This is what the naysayers about deaths after vaccination (whether against eg HPV- cervix cancer or against swine flu) are arguing strongly- that with mass vaccination superimposed on normal deathrates, the deaths within a few hours of vaccination or within days of flu are simply co-incidence, they are unrelated to the co-incidental vaccination or the flu….

The current NICD stats for South Africa show that 77% of those who died with swine flu had relevant co-morbidity – 50% had HIV, 28% were peripartum women, 21% were obese, 11% diabetic, and 9 to 11% had active TB and/or serious cardiac disease. 91deaths is 1.8deaths per million – surprisingly low in the most unequal and reckless population in the world with massive overweight and ischemic heart disease; the poor great majority having been increasingly deprived of jobs, education and quality health care, and suffering the highest AIDs, tuberculosis, infantile and maternal mortality rates, due to criminally negligent government since ‘independence’ 15years ago which has left the majority increasingly worse off.

So while the 2009 swine flu infectivity the world over is probably far above 1%, the fatality rates causally related to the flu virus in those who contracted the swine flu in developed prosperous northern countries (eg Europe, USA, Canada, Japan) was surely well below 0.03% ie <3:10 000; and in poor countries like RSA and Mexico and India, probably similar since the virus would have spread far more densely in crowded poor communities with higher malnutrition and underlying common diseases- but more protected by having already survived poverty-related infections but also having less robust immune response.

It remains a mystery of rational reasoning as to how the wildfire spread of the 2009 H1N1 virus, and the low linked case fatality rates, justify the promotion by first-world countries of ‘pandemic’ panic and mass treatment with untested vaccines and risky antivirals- especially when the vaccines contain notoriously risky adjuvants like mercury, aluminium and squalene, let alone extracts (and possibly prions) from species other than humans. These countries seem to have learned nothing from experience the past century with influenza, polio and HIV.

Why are there such differences in reported swine flu deathrates in similar countries?

Examining regions in the ~ 6 months since the the pandemic hit them:

EUROPE: the biggest nation- Germany with 80million people has had 20 000 people test positive ie 1 in 40 000, with 9 deaths ie about 0.1 in a million of population.

AlpineSwitzerland with almost 8million people has tested all suspicious cases with only 1000 confirmed swine flu, and no suspected deaths – but it has bannedthe Glaxo vaccine Pandemrix from being used in pregnant women, children or young adults (below 18 years of age) or elderly (above 60 years of age).

Scandanavia: InSweden this Glaxo vaccine has already been associated with 5 deaths in the first 2 weeks – 5 deaths per (2) million population vaccinated in a month -with only some 2000 flu cases documented. Yet so far in 6 months only 3 -4 deaths there – 0.3 -o.4 per million population- have been associated with swine flu itself . If 5 deaths there soon after the swine flu vaccine , out of (2) million people vaccinated in less than a month, are co-incidental- a vaccine-related death rate of 1:200 000. – one can equally argue that 4 deaths with the swine flu in a month in a population of 9.2 million is not a causal relationship but co-incidence of death from other causes and not from the passing mild swine flu.. Norway has had 15 deaths ie 3/million; but Finland only 0.4 and Denmark only 0.16 per million. These and Switzerland are all cold countries with some 33million total population, 22deaths representing a fatality rate of 0.66 per million- the same as the average for Europe. Can there be such significant difference in prosperity and social services accross the EU to explain the vastly different death rates? Or is it just statistical vagary, or the fault of sensationalist disease-mongering media?

A warmer but still cool country like Germany has a swine flu deathrate of only 0.1/million, whereas the warmer British Isles have a rate of 2.5/million. And the four Greko-Latin European nations vary from 0.5 in Portugal & Greece to 1.1 in Spain to 4/million in Italy. Why the 8 fold difference? they all take plenty of wine, olive products and a Mediterranean diet; and many citizens travel widely between these old countries and their migrant kith and kin at the fountainhead of swine flu in North America. .

The overall European swine flu deathrate is only 0.78/million, with France – stretching from the Alps to two warmer major oceans – similar, and the Low Countries only 0.5.. Why deathrates in three prosperous countries genetically so linked to the rest of Europe but climatically so diverse as Norway, Italy and UK are so much above the rest of Europe remains to be unraveled.

CONTINENTAL DIFFERENCES: in poor South America there are also wide differences with 1.5 / million in Argentine but 7 per million in Brazil and the whole continent, compared to 3 per million in the colder North America; 4/million in the warmer Caribbean; and 9/million in Australasia. Why should deathrates be the high in the Americas and Australasia, but 90% lower in Japan, India and most of Europe?

But presumably the bigger and poorer the population, the fewer swine flu deaths get reported, tested and attributed- this may apply equally in Southern Africa, as in India, China and Russia.

Despite the vastly different climate conditions under which the majority of their people lives, the American deathrate so far – 5/million- is 25% higher than in Canada and poor Mexico‘s 4/million. But the USA admits that most cases of virus-like pneumonia are no longer being tested for H1N1, there are assumed to be due to it. Yet some sources say that this assumption grossly overestimates the actual swine flu.

COMPARISON WITH AIDS: while the flu also knows no social barriers- it merely spreads faster and bites faster in denser and more vulnerable poor populations- AIDS remains largely a scourge of ignorance, violence (male) and recklessness(male)- especially amongst politicians, who are amongst the most promiscuous people globally, but eg in South Africa also the cruelest in deliberately depriving the population until very recently of both a semblance of social security and antiretrovirals, while spending the abundance of tax revenue on corrupt profligacy – in unneeded weaponry, and personal luxuries like mansions and (to this day) German limos.

Hence the prevalence rate of AIDS varies from above 15% in Southern Africa ( antenatal HIV prevalence of 30%) to between o.1 and 1% in the rest of the world; with mortality varying from 50% within a year of clinical presentation in the malnourished squatter millions without treatment, to 50% survival after 20years with decent living standard and ARVs etc. In South Africa this year AIDS is said to kill a thousand a day ie 20 per million of population every day ie 7200 per million (7.2% of the population) per year- against a crude birthrate of 2% giving a nett population decrease of 5.2% a year, reducing life expectancy at birth to only 49years .

THE VACCINE SAGA: MORE DECEPTION WITH MISLEADING TRIAL RESULTS :

HIV-AIDS VACCINE: after >30years there is still no proven safe relevant vaccine in sight against the HIV. But if rape and male reckless promiscuity were stopped, there would be no need for a vaccine since cross-infection is so easily avoided.

SWINE FLU VACCINE: Since there has been no trial published of the clinical benefit of the flu vaccine, no objective information whatsoever is available to judge it’s efficacy versus risk in swine flu prevention. No significant double-blind trial has been done offering the flu vaccine versus placebo injection. The first uncontrolled apparently open trial started in Australia 22 July, with results promised and delivered within 6 weeks ie 2 months ago. It is strange indeed that just 8 weeks after the start of that trial, the Australian govt approved the vaccination campaign. . A medical media report of 11 Sept says only 240 people were enrolled in the trial, age 18 to 64 years ie outside the peak risk agegroups at the extremes of life; and the only result released was that the subjects had a good antibody response.

Even the NEJM official trial report gives no clinical results as to protection- although the New York Times got it wrong in reporting that the “convincing trial showed robust protection” . This conclusion is hysterical nonsense since the only data reported was the antibody response, which does not mean there will necessarily be any clinical protection against the swine flu. There can be no conclusion as to whether the vaccine reduced the swine flu infection rate or severity because there was no placebo group, double blind or otherwise. Similarly, the Australian trial in children 10 to 17 years old, the Spanish trial in toddlers, the USA trial in pregnancy, and the Chinese trial, showed good antibody response by 10 days – but gave no result about clinical protection.

So all we need is a simple 2 x 2 RCT of flu vaccine versus placebo vaccine, with all cases independently covered by eg a supplement of zinc plus highdose vitamin betacarotene + C + D + K plus fish oil as baseline safety net, or placebo. The most important question remains: given the huge proven benefit of safe vigorous doses of these cheap freely available supplements against both flu and AIDS, do people need anything more than a multisupplement to reduce risk of all diseases? and does adding a costly hazardous H1N1 vaccine on top of that give worthwhile better protection against swine flu? The answer must be overwhelmingly NO, given the risk of at least GBS if not anaphylactic death after H1N1 vaccines. Why take a vaccine if it’s risk is far worse than that of the swine flu itself, let alone simple all-system multinutrient prevention that reduces all-cause mortality by at least a third?

But the last thing that vaccine manufacturers, marketeers and governments want is a negative answer, so they dont allow such a trial- is it because they lack courage, or that they already know the answer is negative, or worst of all, that the vaccine is worse than useless?

Some may argue that it is unethical to offer nothing ie double placebo in such an RCT with rare but arguably serious virus-related complications. So all could be covered by at least a simple standard multivite a day at below RDA levels- which by all accounts gives marginal if any benefits except in the malnourished.

Obviously the difficulty with such a virus trial is cost and invasiveness: in an RCT of the vaccine, one ideally needs to have both serological and culture screening for this hybrid H1N1 virus at baseline – as well as placebo-controlled evidence of reduction in disease. Since the swine flu is so far milder than seasonal flu, there is no other way of defining whether a specific swine flu vaccine is of significant overall benefit against this H1N1 virus.

Trumpeting “pandemic” and compulsory vaccination with an unproven vaccine is a great distraction and profiteering for governments- presidents and the Big Business that controls them and their agencies, beset with insoluble political and corruption scandals as are most. Recently an Australian anti-vaccination group published a damning cross-referenced litany of evidence against the trillion$ vaccination industry.

The current “pandemic” distraction with swine flu while they wage war on their peoples, effective martial law implemented or foreseen in the USA, China, and South Africa (predicted conversion of the police to a massive politicized paramilitary, nationalization of all major industry and business and provincial governments), is beyond the imagination of most fiction writers except masters like Margaret Atwood – ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’; Jose Saramago – ‘Blindness’ and ‘Seeing’; Gabriel Garcia Marquez ; Franz Kafka. .

We can only continue to pray, hope that sanity will prevail , that RCTs of both the swine flu vaccine and antiviral drugs are being done to prove that they are both useful, necessary and safe. There is no evidence on the internet of this, suggesting that conspiracy theory may prove correct – that the whole vaccination and antiviral drugs if not the severity of the ‘pandemic’ are simply the result of disease-mongering for profit, like ever-popular war-mongering on every continent..

Update: 6 May 2010: this week’s recall of Johnson and Johnson’s Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl due to negligent contamination , in particular of Tylenol for children, leapfrogs America’s household favourite Johnson and Johnson J&J to 2nd place (with at least 6 bad drugs) in the fraudsters mafia roll of dishonour behind the unreachable leaders Pfizer with about a dozen notorious fraud drugs. What is another $81million fine to J&J that had sales of >$63billion in each of the last two years with profit of above 20%, and that despite the recall still maintained this turnover in quarterly sales for the 1st quarted this year?

The major thing is that despite J & J’s gross negligence endangering the lives of children, the FDA has taken no other action against them. They terrorize with armed marshalls for trivia and shut down small firms making safe health supplements and physicians using them, but the Big Pharma mafia are the darlings of the FDA and Government since they pay such vast amounts in fees and taxes to Govt and lobbyists- politicians and academicians- trialists – that they are untouchable in every country..

And now Harvard University shows that even Neurontin and lamotrigine increase the risk of suicide by42% and 81% respectively. So the long list of fraudulently overmarketed or hazardous -improperly registered or prescribed drugs without adequate trials or obligatory definite indications- grows.

Pfizer, Bayer, GSK and Roche with the 100% support of their respective government regulators and politicians continue to vie for top place as the biggest fraudsters of all time – competing with the food, tobacco, booze, media, vehicle, financial, lawyer, minerals, fuel and politics industries..

Why is this? Because the public – taxpayers and the poorer consumers- are at their most vulnerable, pawns if not cannonfodder and guineapigs when it comes to trust in government regulators and the giant consumer product industries – manufacturers and big distributors- that Govts regulate – especially the disease and drug industries.

And government regulators are controlled by elected politicians who ( apart from a few altruistic successful honest folk who stand out and are nominated for or called to office -but not Ralph Nader) – as mostly lawyers or failed businessmen/ workers or carreer trade unionists, rarely seek higher office except to further their own financial interests and power lust.

Winston Churchill and Frank Rooseveldt vie with Margaret Sanger, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela for honour as the leading persistent (western) fighter for justice, human rights of the 20th century if not all time, since they were skillful – brave but above all tough enough (unlike many heroic martyrs) to survive to see it through.

Hence there is enormous incentive for collusion between politician/ government officials who control the taxes and spending thereof, and the big businesses that control the big money that escapes the tax officials – including Big Pharma. In South Africa there is no incentive whatsoever for the MCC Medicines Control Council Regulator to work efficiently as all income it generates is absorbed by the Fiscus/Dept Health, which blatantly refuse to produces annual financials for the MCC – effectively a parastatal supposedly under an independent CEO and Board.

Below is a list of costly modern disaster or dubious largely chronic drugs and their manufacturers that earn the profound distrust of consumers: (where there are a proliferation of me-too analogues in a group eg benzos, statins, NSAIDS, bisphosphonates, only the original one or two are listed since they led/lead the pack):

PFIZER -Wyeth -Searle – Upjohn:Neurontin; Geodon, Bextra, Zyvox, Lyrica; Lipitor; Celebrex; PremPro; aspartame; Rezulin; Viagra; and Ativan=lorazepam/ Xanor=alprazolam – two of the most addictive chronic “anxiolytic” benzos – again, in Wiki and MIMS their indications are far fewer than the pages of problems they cause us since the 1970s , papering over and masking symptoms by numbing the mind (as with alcohol and smoking) instead of patients addressing the underlying cause of their anxieties with psychotherapy including learning self-hypnosis control.

Collectively, Pfizer (the conglomerate of rash clones it has swallowed) has as many modern disaster/fraud drugs as the next two combined of its major league fraud competitors:

Eli Lilly – Prozac, Zyprexa; memantine ; and DES-diethylstilbestrol, perhaps the most infamous of all commercialized drugs in causing problems even in grandchildren of those so recklessly exposed to it without evidence of benefit. (Eli Lilly was the last company to stop manufacturing it – in 1997! despite evidence of it’s disasterous effects published in 1953, and of cancer from 1971 . )

Bristol-Myers Squibb -Pravastatin; Plavix, warfarin; And the sustained cover-up of the COSMIC metformin obligatory postmarketing trial done at the insistence of the FDA on a huge 9000 subjects for 1 year in about 1996/7. This trial was eventually submitted for publication only in 2004 and thus published in 2005- but for the previous year BMS and their licensor the original patent-holder Merck denied any knowledge of such a trial although the summary was presented and published a year earlier at a US diabetes congress by the authors, and we supplied the COSMIC abstract- written by BMS researchers who did the COSMIC trial- to BMS and Merck… . why would BMS and Merck delay publication of this trial for so many years, and blatantly deny knowledge of it after the first report of the trial result at a USA diabetes congress ?

The answer can only be the predicted- because it confirmed in the biggest metformn trial cohort ever- 8000 patient-years- that metformin in diabetics gave zero significant adverse drug effects, with the all-cause deathrate in fact 9% lower than in those on other conventional antidiabetic therapies; and four major diabetes prevention trials of metformin in four continents confirmed that it at least halves the incidence of new diabetes- with zero significant adverse effects; and in the intervening years between this trial and it’s result publication, both BMS and Merck developed and launched their respective combinations of metformin and a sulphonylurea (M + SU) . This despite the fact that it was clear since at least the 1970s that the addition of sulphonylurea to metformin is a desperate last resort since it is fraught with risk of hypoglycemia and reversal of the reduction in fatness produced by metformin alone.

A new retrospective study just published from the UK patient database confirms the folly known all along of combination of SU with metformin in that that over a mean of 4 years on therapy, the metformin+SU therapy reduced all-cause mortality by 23% compared to SU alone; while metformin alone compared to SU alone reduced mortality 1/3 more ie by 30% – with trivial risk of hypoglycemia. This was similar to the outcome in the 20year UKPDS RCT, where metformin reduced all-cause mortality by 36% over a mean of 13 years, making it the safest and most effective drug ever patented for chronic degenerative disease. .

And note the cynical folly of the many manufacturers of the grossly overpromoted and overprescribed bisphosphonates and statins – which have numerous serious adverse effects and should be last-ditch therapy in metastatic bone cancer and in rare serious hyperlipidemia, not for osteoporosis, not for mild to moderate lipidemia and certainly not over-the-counter as profiteers crave.

ENDURINGLY BENEFICIAL MODERN CHRONIC DRUGS:

The above drugs contrast with vey few modern chronic designer drugs that are still the leaders in their fields, whether as original or generic – although none of them has been shown to address all-cause mortality and pathogenesis.

Pfizer’s Norvasc=amlodipine is a rare modern designer exception – dating from the late 1980s, it’s patent has only just run out- proving it’s enduring worth for longterm hypertension therapy as the premier 4th-line drug to add when reserpine 0.125mg plus amiloretic 1/2 (ie HCT 25mg + amiloride 2.5mg) daily are inadequate for optimal control; with very low risk of serious adverse effects.

BMS’ Captopril & Merck‘s Renitec – angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors ACEI – date from the mid-late ’70s, and while they were and are the first of the invaluable ACEI inhibitors, 5th line antihypertensive drugs for common use, they have formidable potential for lifethreatening adverse effects- but they are on essential drug lists. In the past dozen years big pharma has attempted to substitute angiotensin 11 receptor blockers ARBs, for the aging ACEI, but a recent metanalysis shows that neither group of drugs significantly lowers fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular events- and they all (unlike reserpine + coamiloretic + amlodipine) have risk of life-threatening adverse effects.

DRUGS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE:

Virtually all other current designer drugs of enduring and safe worth for chronic longterm use originated from the golden era of innovative and enduring designer drugs mostly around WW2 up to the 1960s:

The modern birth control OC pill taken chronically by millions of women for up to decades for either contraception or symptom control, certainly dates enduringly and endearingly from the post war Golden Era as Estinyl (Schering 1930s) , with or alternatively just a progestin. Modern preparations are relatively so safe that they are the preferred contaceptives for millions of young women. But we have just seen two young women unwisely started on Bayer-Schering’s Yaz/Yasmin develop in one case hypertension and major weight gain, the other hives- so such innovations are not necessarily better than established brands of OC .

Merck’s 80yr old metformin- the only laboratory – originated drug (a teak of the galega plant’s biguanide) that reduces all-cause mortality – by no less than 36%, without a single serious adverse effect or mortality if sensibly used;

Bayer’s Adalat; Aspirin (1899) ; prednisone;

Novartis-Ciba-Geigy– Imipramine-Tofranil the first successful commercialise and still enduring major antidepressant.

Pfizer -GDSearle’s Aldactone; Sulfasalazine; and the 100year old phenytoin -Dilantin, still a longterm lifesaving antiepileptic despite occasional major adverse effects.

Boot’s Brufen- the NSAID nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug on Essential Drug Lists, altho there is no evidence that this group of drugs is essenntial since they do not alter the course of the underlying chronic inflammatory disease or reduce longterm mortality and morbidity, are little if at all better than Panado+- codeine as painkillers, and have formidable risks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibuprofen#History

Astra-Zenca-ICIs Inderal was the first of the major new cardiovascular protectant beta-blockers which are essential drugs., altho all have formidable potential adversity ; as with ACEI, no special optimal favourite has yet emerged; they have some special chronic indicatiions, including heart conditions and special cases of hypertension. .

It is surely no co-incidence that virtually all the above common fraud-drug pharmacy companies are among the dozen top money-spinners listed on 2009 financials.. But perhaps the biggest racketeering of modern times has yet to be quantified, perhaps $100 billion of wasted money on last year’s swine flu “pandemic” that never happened, in futile mass screening lab tests and vaccines and Tamiflu – giving massive profits (some companies claimed >$6billion) with total indemnity against litigation to Roche, GSK, Novartis, Baxter, Sanofi et al.. The USA-dominated WHO hastily changed the core definition of pandemic early in the North American outbreak so it could declare the nonsensical pandemic to suit the pockets of the profiteering American-European conglomerate and the political lobbyists they employ in Government and beaurocracy…

So do we wonder why we can’t trust Big Pharma prescription drugs and doctors’ judgment? Read the stats of a 5years study of the relevant risks, of deaths from prescription drugs in USA ( versus natural supplements) exceeding over 106 000 to 1. Thats why Big Pharma and it’s “regulators” like the US Govt FDA, the UK MCC, European medicines Authority EMA, and organized doctors, are so desperate to stop the public buying the supplements people choose- when early and permanent use of balanced natural supplements at least halve serious disease and thus medical consultations, prescription drug use and hospitalization. For profit, only disease (not prevention) pays.

Of the 103 drugs that achieved $billion sales in 2006,: considering the chronic disease drugs, only valproate and J & J’s contraceptive dates back to the 1980s; Wyeth’s Premarin-Prempro dates back to 1995; and (omiting duplicate entries) only 33 were oral drugs for chronic major common degenerative (as opposed to infective or malignant or autoimmune ) diseases. And of the ~33 , only 10 (in descending order of sales value on that list) even vaguesly justified their ranking and sales- amlodipine, venlafaxine, bupropion, metoprolol, Viagra ,carvedilol, valproate, ramipril, paroxitine and premarin-

Reuter’s forecast of the 10 >$5billion raincheques for 2010 include in descending rank for common chronic diseases only the tablets Lipitor, Plavix, Diovan and Crestor- none of which are proven essential drugs for common average disease use. They are there solely because of heavy marketing by Big Pharma, despite their mediocre results and major potential risks, with far better results given by long-proven natural supplements or by lowdose reserpine-amiloretic combination, then amlodipine .

Finally, landmark drugs that were not invented by, or were laregly ignored by, suppressed by drug companies as medicinals:

Yet despite the vast evidence favouring fish oil, metformin and EDTA as perfectly safe and effective chronic anticoagulation, the Disease Industry persists in promoting rat poison- warfarin, dicoumarol– as the common chronic anticoagulant, despite its’ proven risks of promoting hemorrhage, fractures – already known since at least 1998 , vascular calcinosis already known since 1998 and most recently published last month; and even cancer .

Metforminis unique, the widest multidisease panacea ever extracted (from a traditional antidiabetic plant) and patented. Like EDTA it was eventually identified in 1922 by university researchers Werner and Bell in Ireland – but only patented and produced for routine diabetic use since the 1950s- and deliberately obstructed for use in the USA for another 40 years by the FDA and Big Pharma, which were busy as bees designing and mass marketing far less safe and effective USA sulphonylureas although these were already discredited by the UGDP almost 50 years ago, when metformin was ‘rediscovered’ and came into its own.

Reserpine also a plant (rauwolfia) extract remains (with coamiloretic, amilozide) both in low dose the first-line drug treatment of all classes of hypertension– which since the prevalence of this disease now approachines 50 % in aging adults, makes these drugs amongst the most prevalent essential drugs needed. As even wiki says, from many major studies over decades, “Reserpine is one of the few antihypertensive medications that have been shown in randomized controlled trials to reduce mortality” – in at least a score conclusive trials of the individual components reserpine, thiazide and amiloride, the triple combination is by far the best firstline therapy, at a cost in South africa of about $US1 a month.. . But Big Pharma and its profiteer lobbyists continue to suppress the combination fraudulently based on decades-old overdosage data.

By contrast well over 100 natural micronutrient substances – cinnamon, garlic, ginger, codeine, reserpine, digoxin, huperzine A, galega-metformin and many other plant extracts; vitamins especially B,C,D in higher dose; , minerals especially calmag, zinc, chromium, boron, iodine, iron and even lithium; and human biologicals that deplete with aging like glucochondroitin, CoQ10, acetylcysteine, arginine, cartnitine , GABA, 5HTP and almost 20 other hormones replaced chronically – provide almost every chronic major degenerative disease with the best prevention and treatment, without the almost invariable risks of the modern designer chronic drugs discussed above.

Since alcohol and tobacco, salt and sugar are still freely sold over the counter OTC without any restrictions except some to children , the commonest causes of chronic degenerative disease in more than slightest daily usage, it is obviously lowdose vitamin K, vitamin C and D, lithium, magnesium, reserpine, metformin- galega and EDTA that should be mandatorily supplemented in the food chain for the fattening aging 1st-world populations, and allowed OTC purchase; while indications are severely limited for prescription of sulphonylureas, statins, bisphosphonates and the dozens of other disaster or dubious designer drugs listed above.